Well, of course it's about my life and stuff I think about. Just like a quadzillionbazillion other bloggers. I'm obsessed with God. I love beauty, enjoy absurdity, dance with despair, seek silence, and think everyone is goofy. Here's my world and what I think of it....

About MeMeMe!

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Sixty is how old your parents are when you are "finding yourself" and perhaps in the middle of your first permutation of real job/career/marriage/children and you don't have much time for them.

Sixty is when you start talking about colonoscopies, noticing spots on your skin you think look "iffy", and your doctor wants to do biopsies and take enough blood work to have an open bar at a vampire wedding. My life insurance rate is more than my first house payments... all these are flashing warning lights that the road not too far ahead is indeed closed.

At sixty I also know beyond a doubt I'm leaving a legacy, a lot of which is carved in stone by an amateur. I see a bigger picture than I could at thirty or forty. I kind of knew a big picture existed when I was twenty, but when you've only lived less than 20% of your life conciously you don't really know what "big" even looks like. So now I see the wrong colors chosen, the errant brush strokes, the unbalanced composition of everything I've done and everyone I've touched. So now, if nothing else, I will spend my days trying to re-shape and erase and incorporate all the indelible strokes of my past with the goal of leaving something somewhat beautiful in the end.

Sixty is how old you are when you bless your kids as they pursue their own lives, even if it means getting less of them than you'd like. That is not a bad thing.... Sixty year old doting, guilting, controlling parents is an ugly thing. The helicopter has to run out of gas at some point, and looking back on six kids, the sooner the better.

The Wifey had a "Roast" of me for my 60th birthday. I wish I could post the speeches, but I guess I'll just say that if I died today, I would die a happy man that everyone knew me so well that they could point up my faults and goofiness so clearly, and yet in spite of knowing me so well, still showed up and brought me gifts and honored me by being there to mark the event with me. I am a blessed man, even if the Synod of Orthodox Bishops decreed that my birthday never be commemorated in any Orthodox Church henceforth and forevermore. (It was a joke... kinda.)

And now I am in Montana for a week. I can "telecommute" in my job. So I came up for my sister's wedding. She asked if I would say some things at the wedding. Considering a "prophet is without honor in his own country" I considered that one of the biggest blessings of my life.

I gave the "wedding sermon" and basically talked about why be "married" after being "engaged" for eight years. I talked about being created in the image of the Trinity, "being as communion", and what it means to live eucharistically "in love" rather than just "sharing stuff legally because the State gives you a piece of paper". I talked about wheat and wine and how they are transformed sacramentally by grinding, crushing and work... much like human beings in marriage. The highlight of the evening for me was when, after 80 people consumed over fifty pounds of bratwursts and burgers, 60 bottles of wine, two kegs of beer and sundry other adult beverages, my sister and brother in law's HARDCORE atheist friend who had downed more than a few and had been in a heated discussion with a couple of evangelical wedding guests earlier in the afternoon, sat down at the table next to me. He kind of tipped/leaned toward me, opened his mouth and pointed before he made any words (like drunk people do) and said, "I gotta say... I don't believe ANY of that Christian shit you were talking about,... but you sure made sense, that was really beautiful what you said. I'm gonna have to think about all that s'more. Thank you."

Tuesday, August 07, 2012

I'm back to "work"... well, my job that pays a regular paycheck with benefits.

Annual checkup. I hate it when the doctor plays Queen when he's doing my prostate exam.

Two biopsies that got infected.

Admin at work decides to migrate email servers and reconfigure and update all of our computers the week before school starts... one of the most email/website/software intense times of the year. #yeahiknowfirstworldproblem

Finishing construction projects the day before school starts.

Dead battery. My third "Die Hard" that died under warranty. Free replacements. Yay.

Discovered I'm allergic to neosporin/triple antibiotic... after 3 visits to the doctor, which would also account for four other "infections" I've gotten and spent over 2000.00 to cure in the past 15 years.

The joints of my fingers actually hurt from cutting and pasting Excel spreadsheet data my first day back on the job. I guess that beats a back injury from cutting and lifting sheetrock.

Sushi with Daughter #1 for the first time in ages. I don't know where she got "workaholic" from.... Hm.

Biopsies were negative. Still not sure how I really feel about that.

Cholesterol is up to 285. I'm supposed to eat oatmeal instead of Sausage McMuffins for breakfast and fish instead of pulled pork from now on. Um... yeah....